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Simple Tips for Moving (Without Losing Your Mind or Your Stuff)

In just a little over a month, my husband and I will move to the big city. That’s the good news. The bad news is that I get to do almost all of the packing. Matthew is working a lot and doesn’t have much time to pack, so instead of continuing in my fruitless search for some very short term work, I now sit here wondering just how many boxes this is going to require. It’s okay, though. It could be worse, I remind myself. We could have kids and a lot more stuff.

This is only the second time I’ve had to move (not counting any moves before the age of five) and the first time I’m organizing it myself. Luckily for me, I love to organize things. I’ve been doing a lot of research and so far the process has been relatively stress free. How? Read on to find out.

Shawna’s Moving Tips

Before you do anything, you need to have a catch-all such as a binder or a notebook where you can keep every important document or piece of information. Excel spreadsheets work nicely too, but they are not portable, so you will probably want to print it out on moving day.

Once you have a place to keep all of your information, start making a rough moving timeline. How much time do you have before the big day? Months? Weeks? You might want to print out a calendar for reference. No matter how much time you have, now is a good time to research moving companies, or reserve a U-haul and start recruiting friends and family to help if you will be moving yourself.

Declutter

Before you start packing, consider how much space you have in your new place. Even if you’re moving into a larger home or apartment, this is a good time to do a little decluttering. Here is a simple rule to follow:

If you don’t absolutely love it and you don’t absolutely need it, consider getting rid of it.

Pare down your wardrobe and your DVD cabinet. Donate the old sheets that don’t match your new bedding. No, you’re never going to find the lid for that piece of Tupperware, so just get rid of it. Allow the hideous lawn gnome given to you by your overbearing relative to get “lost” in the move. These items aren’t worth the effort it takes to move them a mile away or a country away.

Pack

If at all possible, take the time to pack well. Don’t mix items from two different rooms in one box. Don’t just dump the entire junk drawer into a box and call it good. Avoid labeling every box “Bedroom Closet Junk” and “Desk Cabinet Stuff” at all costs. Develop a labeling system. Every one of my boxes has the following written on it in at least two places (the top and a side):

• FRAGILE or THIS SIDE UP (if applicable—this is written on every side)
• Room in which the box should be placed
• Where the contents will go in the room (such as cupboard, desk, or closet)
• The semi-specific contents of the box (such as Christmas ornaments, six books, or pots, frying pans, and springform pans)
• The box number
• A priority level such as A (open immediately), B (open within the first week), or C (open whenever)

To make labeling the boxes easier, I created printable labels in Publisher. Not only do I have to write less, but the labels are much easier to read than badly written marker on cardboard. There are several advantages to this labeling system:

• You can check off box numbers as they are loaded or unloaded to ensure that nothing gets lost.
• You won’t have to do as much directing on moving day because every box says exactly where it should go.
• And if you have the time and patience to copy down the contents of each box into a notebook or into Excel, you can easily locate an item you need without digging through multiple boxes.

You can download a PDF file of my labels, which includes labels for kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom, dining room, office, and storage, or you can download the Publisher file and edit it to suit your needs.

Graph

Another way to save some stress on moving day is to map out a floor plan ahead of time. If space is not an issue, having a general idea of where things should go is probably sufficient. But if you’re like me—moving into a small space and unsure if your stuff is going to fit or just really really ridiculously organized—you might want to take measurements and make an accurate floor plan.

First, you need to know the dimensions of each room in your home or apartment. I was given these, but you can also measure the rooms yourself. Then, measure each piece of furniture or major appliance. Write everything down.

Analog:

Get some graphing paper and decide on a scale. I used a page per room and each square was half a foot. Then draw in your walls, doors, and windows. To save yourself some trouble, draw the pieces of furniture on a separate page, cut them out and stick some double sided tape on the back. Then you can rearrange as much as you want without erasing.

Digital:

Make a new sheet in Excel and set the column width to 2 or 2.5 so that it looks like graphing paper. Use borders to create the walls, windows, and doors. I used the thickest solid border for exterior walls, the medium solid border for interior walls, the thinnest solid border for furniture and counters, the double border for doors, and the thick dashed border for windows. You can also fill in your flooring/furniture colors.

If you have enough room for all of your furniture, that’s fabulous. But if you find that you’re having difficulty cramming everything into your little apartment, you may want to eliminate the pieces that are least valuable, least sentimental, or that offer the least amount of storage space. Once your floor plan is perfect, you can label everything and make copies for everyone helping on moving day. Then you won’t have to do as much directing.

Plan

Once packing is underway and the day of the move is fast approaching, start making a checklist for the days before and moving day. If you put some thought into it and make a detailed checklist now, you won’t have as many “Oh no! I still have to do this!” moments as you’re loading up the truck. Know what you will need on moving day and keep it all in one place.

• Fill a cleaning caddy and a tool caddy.
• Buy new garbage cans and throw soap, paper towels, toilet paper, and garbage bags into each of them so that you can drop them off in the kitchen and bathrooms as soon as you arrive.
• Pack some snacks, paper plates, napkins, and plastic cups and silverware and look up the number of a good pizza delivery service in your new neighborhood.
• Consider even having groceries delivered to your new place the day after you move in to save yourself the trouble of going to the grocery store when you’re knee deep in boxes. Safeway has free shipping for your first order.

All of these are practical tips that will hopefully make the process of moving a little bit simpler, but don’t forget to do a few things for yourself in order to make yourself at home as you’re moving in. Make your bed once it’s set up. It will be one small victory even if you feel like nothing else was accomplished by the time you go pass out. Get out your lamps, curtains, real dishes, and real silverware soon after moving day. Put out a welcome mat.

Doing a few finishing touches before you’re finished will make your home feel less like a shipping warehouse in the days and weeks to come—and at least you can turn on a light when you’re digging through boxes because you realized that the one item you actually needed ended up in a box that was mislabeled.